Raven's Blood: Refuge Omnibus, #2

By Foy W. Minson

It's Matti Raven's eighteenth birthday.  She's bright.  She's athletic.  And she's bi-racial growing up in what has always seemed a racially tolerant, small town near the northern California coast. 

During the first minutes of a fiery invasion of Earth by the Kryl, the brutal rulers of a vast, stellar empire, she is both orphaned and revealed to be a telepath.  Alone among the survivors in the apocalyptic world that follows, she is given a choice by a gang of cutthroats to become their communal sex toy or to be skinned alive.  When she opts to go down fighting, she discovers that she is not alone and that it's a toss-up which of her allies is most lethal.

Conversing with animals was just the beginning.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Foy W. Minson
• Release date: Jan 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9798985599220

Foy W. Minson

Foy W. Minson joined the U. S. Air Force in the summer after high school graduation, became an aircraft mechanic, and served eight years, half of it in Europe.  After that, he was a police officer for almost eighteen years before taking a disability retirement, after which he was a private investigator, a commercial property manager, a security guard, and a courthouse weapons screener.  He currently lives and writes in Santa Rosa, California.

Book preview

PART I – SURVIVOR

CHAPTER 1 – Firestorm

Matti Raven rambled on, as a teenager might do when in the company of one with whom she is totally comfortable and all was right and good with her world.

... with skin the color of coffee, no cream.  Don’t you just love the image that evokes? she asked Adam, her dad’s old navy-buddy.  He was almost ten years younger than her dad — but to an eighteen-year-old, brand new, high school graduate, even a low thirty-something was getting up there.  She went on describing the latest developments in what she hoped would be a promising future as a writer.  "... so, I figured I’d pattern her after me.  You know, smart and popular and verrry pretty.  I like that phrase, don’t you?  I mean the one about skin the color of coffee, no cream.  It’s so descriptive.  And it fits me, too.  Don't you think?  It's, ya know, here I am, as I am.  Ya know?"

Yeah, I think I know.  Adam’s familiar chuckle felt good in her ears.

She smiled as she laid her hand softly on his shoulder and gently patted, a properly raised lady respectfully offering encouragement to a doddering elder.  That’s good.  And just that quick, she was back to eighteen and thirty-something.  So, what do you think?  Is she believable?  Will people like her?  They'd better, ‘cause I’m probably going to use her in a bunch of stories.  If she catches on like I hope, I’m thinking of maybe a book — you know, a novel.

He glanced at her just as she flashed another smile, then paused before arching his eyebrows halfway up his forehead.  A novel?  Really?  Wow, a book.  Do you know that many words?

She knew he had read all her articles, essays, and short stories, including two published in a national, teen magazine, and he had given her many compliments on her talent and her discipline.  But their relationship involved a whole lot of teasing, which she loved, so her reaction was practically automatic.  As he stopped the car near the front door of the little grocery store on the corner of Main, he glanced over at her.  She knew he would be expecting a wise-crack of some kind as a come-back, so she just sat silent while gaping at him cross-eyed and with her tongue sticking out one side of her mouth. 

She could see he was fighting to maintain a straight face as he reached out and brushed his fingertip lightly across the corner of her mouth, ignoring her protruding tongue as though it was her natural look.  He said, Hmm, looks like you might have missed a crumb of toast or something.

Figuring the score was about even, she dropped her funny-face, flashed another I-love-you smile, popped open her door, and got out.  Thanks for the ride, Uncle Adam.

You sure you don't want me to wait a couple minutes and give you a lift back home?

No, that’s okay.  I like to walk, and it’s only a few blocks.  Thanks, anyway.

Okay, Champion.  He leaned over and gave her a brief hug and a peck on the cheek.  Happy birthday again, and I’ll see you at dinner.  Your mamma said she’s fixing ribs, you know.  And, yes, I do like her, your character.  She sounds great.  Sorta reminds me of someone I know.

Her smile, as natural as her coffee-toned skin, remained on her face as she waved him out of the parking lot and away north on Main. 

When she stepped out the door of the market several minutes later and turned toward home, a relaxed smile graced her face, and a small shopping bag swung in her hand.  She didn’t notice the thing hanging low in the sky beyond the hills south of town.  Her mind was busy going over the recipe for the buttermilk cake for her birthday dinner that night.  She hadn’t made one in months, and it was her dad’s favorite.  

Anyway, the apparent size of the thing in the sky, which appeared three or four times the apparent size of a full moon, didn’t make it all that arresting unless its nearly fifty-mile distance was considered, if that could have even been judged without knowing the size of such a never-before-seen object.  It might have been mistaken for a large weather balloon, except for the wispy, high, cirrus clouds streaking the sky over the Bay Area that were visible below it to give an indication of its distance and size.  Anyway, although her route home was southerly, the trees lining the street pretty much blocked any view of the sky and any objects up there — strange or otherwise. 

By the time she reached the third cross street, it no longer mattered.  Her leisurely walk home and all the sequential things that would have occupied her mind on such a mission evaporated in puffs of memory all but beyond recall in the moments it took for her neighborhood, her town, to explode in time-stopping chaos. 

She couldn’t remember starting her panic-fueled run or the paralyzing sights that had preceded it — only knowing that she couldn’t stop. 

She just regained her footing from a jarring explosion off to her left when searing-hot air slammed into her from the other side, another fast-moving wall ahead of yet another expanding fireball that gained its full size just before engulfing her.  Bright yellow darkened first to orange, and then burnt orange streaked with black turning in on itself as oily smoke roiled liquid-like flames.  Noxious fumes enveloped her, displacing the air her lungs sucked in with spasm-inducing wastes.  She ducked lower and sprinted past the car no longer visible at the heart the hellish turbulence. 

The terror engulfing her was so overwhelming only the heat of the flaming maelstrom surrounding her could penetrate.  But beyond the fear, a great sense of devastation worse than the holocaust about her threatened to freeze her thudding heart.  Icy claws of paralyzing grief tore at her insides even as the world blazed about her.  All she had known, all she had loved, had died, destroyed in the flames.  All she could think — if thinking could describe the unreasoning bedlam that roiled her mind — was that she, too, would die unless she kept running.  More and more of those agonizing memories of her life up to mere minutes ago blanked out with each step, and reflex drove her on as an extended hand, unthinking, jerks away from a hot stove ... and she ran on.

She staggered and slowed when a cloud of hot ashes swirled about her face, coating her dark brown skin with ghostly gray.  It stung her eyes and filled her gasping mouth with choking, bitter paste ... and she ran on.

Terror rocked her with each searing shock wave.  Winds set swirling by the immense updrafts above block after block of burning neighborhoods carried sparks and embers that burned her skin where they touched.  She cupped her hands over the bare skin of her face and ears, sacrificing exposed hands and arms in futile attempts to protect the more sensitive areas from the blistering heat that engulfed her ... and she ran on. 

Cooler ... darker ... safer. 

Not words; not quite pictures; just impressions, perceptions, feelings — but vivid — more so than any wish.  They suddenly just appeared uncalled in her seething mind.  Superimposed like ghostly, photographic double-exposures over the raging inferno through which she fled; they were as hard to focus on as shadows flickering through a memory.  She could almost see a place that was cooler ... and darker ... and safer.

The rupturing gas tank of another car she had raced past just two houses back blossomed into another smoky, orange fireball that reached halfway across the street and higher than many of the trees lining the street ... and she ran on.

Wet feet ... feels good ... tastes bad.

Oh, yes!  Yes!  Soak my feet ... drink more and more and ... wha ... what?

It was so powerful, the strange perception of cool water washing blistered feet swept through her mind, water that soothed but smelled and tasted stagnant and muddy, fleeting but memorable. 

Before she could pursue the thought beyond the back-of-the-mind argument that her feet were not wet or blistered — not yet, although the pavement threatened to melt the rubber right off the soles of her sneakers if she didn’t keep moving her feet — terror pushed back in, obliterating anything else she might try to focus on.  And she ran on. 

She didn’t think about where she was running to, only what she was running from.  Fire and death reigned behind her, had destroyed everything she loved, everyone she loved.  It would destroy her, too, unless she kept running.  But the fire was in front of her, too.  If she kept going forward, she would die.  But she couldn’t turn around and go back.  She would be consumed just like the homes and cars and trees and lives behind her.  And if she stayed here in the middle of the street, she would die, bursting into flame like another tree.  She had to keep running, and so she ran on. 

Danger in the dark ... strange smells, musty-moldy ... better than hot ... fear. 

They were just impressions, less than thoughts.

Her mind screamed, What dark?

Then, demanding sense from the nonsensical things invading her mind, she screamed it aloud.  What dark! 

Tears streamed down her face and mixed with sweat that evaporated as fast as it formed, drying her skin to parchment.  The strange impressions jarred her back from the panic whose talons clawed at her mind. 

What musty-moldy smell?  I can’t smell anything but smoke!

Half a block ahead another car, this one in a driveway, went up with a muffled whump, forcing her mind back to desperate survival.

On she ran, veering left and right as needed to avoid blazing trees, cars in driveways, cars at the curb, cars in the street, all blazing or ready to blaze, searching for some protected hole, but she could find nothing that the terrible heat would not reach into.

Cool air ...  river smells ... animal smells ... hole smells in (deep, dark place).  Maybe danger in (deep, dark place) ... more danger out (blinding flashes of heat and light). 

This time the impressions were strong, detailed, and even more vivid than before.  They overwhelmed her other thoughts like a boosted CB radio signal suddenly inserting its own messages on neighborhood receivers.

Thrown off balance by the insanity of the games her mind played, she stumbled and recovered to a slowed shuffle.  The almost-thoughts that invaded her too-busy mind were still only impressions and perceptions, and she was certain they were not hers.  Their strangeness was enough, though, to edge out the still immediate peril surrounding her, at least for a moment or two. 

She glanced about. 

Swirling embers sparked new blazes when they landed.  The constant roar of the firestorm through which she fled was like the snarling voice of an insane, voracious beast feasting on the town.  Created by rising heat sucking in oxygen-rich air from surrounding areas, the beast would feed until it starved for fuel, but not before every living thing in the area writhed in throes of death. 

Could it be that someone was calling out to her?  Or, maybe they weren’t even calling to her, just calling out.  But, no, there was no one, just a burning town.  Besides, she hadn’t heard a voice; she was positive.

What she did see propelled her back into the nightmare.  One of those ... things, those flying things — she refused to think of them as flying saucers — swept past just above the inferno it created.  They weren’t planes or saucers or anything she might expect to fly.  They were balls, spheres, orbs with no markings that she could make out other than sort of an oil on water shimmer, and they were ten of fifteen feet in diameter.  She assumed someone — no, something must be inside piloting them.  Of course, they could be robotic, and she couldn’t think of any reason to believe they weren’t.  None of it made sense, anyway.  They floated or zoomed or darted back and forth, even stopped to hover or go in reverse at times.  They changed direction abruptly and without slowing in violation of all the hard and fast laws of physics she was aware of.  They simply couldn’t do what they did, but they did.  But she was only peripherally aware of these things; she didn’t have time to think about if they were piloted or how they stayed aloft, and, at that point, she didn’t care.

Fighting against panic as she coughed and gasped for breath in the searing, smoke-filled air, she spun about, searching for someplace — anyplace — that might offer a refuge from the terrible, searing heat.  Even if it was only for a few moments, she might be able to think clearly enough to —

She stopped turning. 

Again, a double-exposure, but this one was a scene of raging flames raging down a wooded draw superimposed over her own view of that same scene before her, but from a lower angle.

On the west side of the street, a ten-foot-deep creekbed between sloping, tree-topped banks filled the gap of forty feet or so between residential yards.  It was one of the brush-choked creeks meandering out of the hills west of town, snaking through several blocks of neighborhoods, and finally to the river bisecting the town.  Right here, though, where a railing lined the edge of the sidewalk on the south side of the street still eight blocks from the river, the creek went underground.  She realized where she was.

The creek bed narrowed to six feet or so where it entered the dome-shaped, concrete lined tunnel beneath the street and beneath all the properties between there and the river.  It hadn’t rained for a couple of months, so it had three or four feet of air space above the dry concrete floor.  She wouldn’t have to go all the way to the river to escape the terrible heat, just a little way beyond the entrance.

Glancing down, she saw a reflection of still water right below her, not ten feet below her burning feet.  The creeks never carried flowing water during the rainless summers, but occasional low spots allowed ground water to collect.  Such a pool was right in front of the tunnel where once flowing water had washed out the dirt at the lip of the concrete.  Although it was only inches deep, it was so inviting.  She paused long enough to fantasize plunging her burning feet into its coolness.  Then she remembered the strange impressions that had invaded her mind, and she knew, albeit with déjà vu uncertainty, that the muddy little pool was their inspiration.

But, how?  How could I have —? 

Her attention jumped back up the creek to where wind-whipped flames rushed through the trees and brush just a hundred feet away, rushing down the creek toward her like an orange flood spewing smoky-colored foam, and it would be at the tunnel entrance within seconds.

She rounded the end of the low railing and, with her first step on the steep slope, fell back onto her rump and slid the rest of the way.  The sturdy material of her jeans protected her from sharp twigs and stones, but her skimpy polo shirt did little to shield her from the thistles snagging at her as she slipped past.  The flames bore down on her as her feet splashed through the little pool, and at the same time her mind reeled under a bombardment, a hodgepodge of almost-thoughts, impressions, feelings and perceptions, all without words.

Danger!  Fear!  Frighten away!  Bite!  Danger behind!  Danger ahead!  Fear!  Bite!  Fear!

They hit her like a storm of foam-flecked barking of a snarling, junk-yard dog, but without the barking.  Matti staggered from the impact of the mental assault as she turned away from the wave of heat surging down the creek bed ahead of the on-rushing flames.  Fetid, cool air sucked from the tunnel by the voracious appetite of the flames blew on her face, but she could feel the skin on the back of her neck reaching the point beyond which it would surely cook.  She ducked her head and dove into the darkness.

Fear.  Go away!  Danger!  Go away!  Bite warning! 

Accompanying the almost-verbal thoughts was an urgent, open-mouthed snarl close-by in the darkness.  She reached back out to the muddy pool and scooped up a palm-full of mud.  As she smeared it across the tortured skin on her neck, cheeks and forehead, she peered into the blackness before her.  At first she could see nothing, still night-blind from the glare of fire-enhanced daylight behind her, but within seconds the approaching flames filled the first several feet of the tunnel with wavering, orange light.  Curving to the right, the tunnel disappeared into a well of ink as its sloping wall blocked the fire’s light.

Go away!  Fear.  Bite warning! 

On the outside curve of the tunnel she could make out a large shape crouching low just beyond the bend.  A pulsating growl rumbled, sounding more menacing each time its maker drew a quick breath.  Two eyes glowing orange in the reflected light glared back at her.

CHAPTER 2 – Searing Memories

Calm.   Friend.   Safe.   More as reflex than strategizing, Matti struggled to fill her mind with feelings as her thoughts formed words to accompany them.  I will not harm you.   I am safe for you.   You are safe.   I will help you.   I am your friend.   I will protect you.

A new terror of the unknown creature also filled her mind, but she did her best to block it from the thoughts she tried to project.  She had no idea what she was doing.  But if she couldn’t calm the animal that was here first, she would probably have to either fight it or go back into the furnace.

Wishing for more confidence, she projected more feelings of safety, calm and goodwill.  I will make your feet better.  I will make you safe.  I will help you.

Fear ... confusion ... fear ...

The feelings of danger and warning that had swamped her at first began to soften and evolve, but still overlaid with fear. 

Fear ... uncertainty ... fear ... hope ... fear ...

Her confidence swelled, and she tried again.  Come to me.  I will help you.  Come to me.

The frightening growl changed to a whine.  The orange eyes blinked and swept from side to side as the animal looked out at the raging fire and back into the darkness.

Come to me.  I am friend.  Come to me.

The crouching shadow-shape began to inch forward, and the terrified animal whined again. 

Hope ... fear ... hope.  Protection?

The fear was still there, but hope was beginning to overshadow it.  She had to build on that.  Protection here.  Come to me.  Safety with me.  Come to me.

The dog soon became clearly visible as Matti’s eyes adjusted to the darkness.  It was dark, probably black. 

And big!  Oh, my God, how could I fight that?  Can’t let it sense my fear.  Turning her thoughts outward, she projected, Come to me.  I will sooth your feet.

When the dog was close enough to touch, she could see it was probably a black Labrador retriever.  She reached out her hand to just in front of its muzzle and the dog sniffed it.  Gradually, the feelings she received increased with hope and lost all but a bare shadow of reluctance.  Though diminished, the fear was still there. 

She slowly pulled her hand back and at the same time projected, Come to me.  Come closer.  I will sooth your feet.

Again, the dog crept forward on its belly and stopped before her, its muzzle resting on its forelegs. 

Good boy, Matti said softly.  That’s a good boy. 

She continued to project thoughts of calmness and goodwill. 

You just lie there and relax.  Huh?  Okay?  Here, let me see what your feet look like.  Let me just ...

Moving slowly, she lifted one of the paws enough to peer at the bottom side in the dim, flickering light.  After confirming the other one was similarly injured, and assuming the back feet were probably burned, too, she edged back out to the little pool at the edge of the concrete floor.  The heat was brutal, but she had to remain there for only a moment, just long enough to dip the strip of cloth torn from the bottom of her shirt.

The dog had not moved when she crawled back to its side.  She continued to speak in a voice to echo her soothing thoughts while she squeezed little streams of water onto each paw. 

But, how did I get here?  Did you call me?  I would have missed this place if you hadn’t pulled me up short.  I’d have just kept right on running until I ...  ‘Cause I ...  My family ...

Her mind screamed.  With a flinch of reflex and a blink of closing shutters, she dropped the too fresh memories like a searing-hot potato snatched and immediately dropped back into the embers at the edge of a campfire before fingertips — or a fragile psyche — had a chance to blister.  Horrid events faded behind veils of shadow leaving only docile mind-pictures of disconnected but tolerable scenes.

As she ministered to it, the dog didn’t move except to raise its head from its legs and peer back at her when she bathed the back feet.  Afterward, she sat beside the prone animal and gently stroked its quivering back and side.

The firestorm sucked air from beyond the hills at its perimeter, drawing it in a rush through canyons and valleys and creek beds.  It quickly depleted any hole of oxygen as the voracious flames fed.  If Matti’s hole had not been open to the river at the other end, she would have suffocated while she baked within moments of entering the tunnel.  Instead, she and the dog merely suffered the dank odor of the buried creek and connecting storm drains as the air from the river rushed past her to spew from the tunnel like a bellows stoking the flames.

While the fire raged outside the dark refuge, Matti sagged to lie beside the dog.  As weary as her tortured body was, it was her mind that threatened to collapse beyond retrieval.  Turning her face away from the blazing light, her eyes closed, and, as veiling shadows eddied across her consciousness, she slid into the escape of dreamless sleep.

Matti opened her eyes with the face of the dog just inches away.  She must have jerked, because the dog’s eyes popped open and peered into hers.  Neither moved for a moment, then Matti picked up the shred of shirttail and crawled over to look out the tunnel entrance.

Waning daylight bathed the world just visible beyond a churning haze of brown smoke.  The tangle of brush that had filled the creek bed was long since reduced to smoking, black skeletons of charcoal standing amid drifts of ash, but flames still flickered in many of the trees beyond.  The tops of the houses visible near the creek wore crowns of dancing flames, and the deep roar of conflagration in the receding distance told her the nightmare was not over.

After she sipped enough of the stagnate liquid from the palm of her hand to ease her parched throat — she was certain she recognized the muddy taste with the salty seasoning of settled ashes — she dipped the rag and sopped up brown water from the little pool.  The dog raised his head when she scooted back beside him, then lowered it again when she began dribbling the soothing stuff onto his injured pads.

With the worst of her memories still filtered out, her terror seemed to be back into some semblance of control.  But with her mind still emerging from the fog of sleep, she resisted delving back into pain.  Instead, she focused her attention on caring for the frightened and hurting animal.  Soothing him with a stream of softly spoken words as well as trickles of water, she began to mull over the puzzle of what led her there.

So, what was it you did?  And how?  Or was it me?  What did I do?  Did I do something?  I don’t remember doing anything but running.  I sure didn’t know you were here.  I didn’t even know here was here.  I was just going blind.  So, how did I hear your ... your thoughts?  Is that what I heard?  Your thoughts ... your feelings?  And I think I saw what you saw, the fires coming down the creek.  Naw, no way!  How could I have heard your thoughts?  That’s like ... what?  Telepathy?  Are you a telepath?  Am I? 

With the fearful uncertainty of opening a box that she knew contained the worst horrors she could imagine, she allowed her thoughts to probe back into her nightmare, picturing and supposing. 

Momma sitting at the kitchen table, nudging the yarn ball across the floor for Barnaby to chase.  Dad sitting there, laughs as the silly kitten pounces, then he looks out the window and sees —

It was like prodding at a fresh and bloody wound, one in which her very flesh had been ripped apart, and she recoiled from the sudden and searing, mental pain.  No, she can’t go there, not yet.  Better to go back to before and work her way slowly up to the horrors.

She wondered how much time had passed since the ending of the world had begun.  She could have sworn it had been days, even weeks.  Those hours — it had to be many hours, at the very least — were all jumbled together in a montage of images that swirled around in kaleidoscopic confusion.  She couldn’t be sure which events followed others.  But when she forced herself to think about it logically, about how far she could have run in this small town without running right out of it, she realized it had to be only a few hours from then to now; much less than even one hour at the time she had first scrambled into this hole.  The trees were still burning, so it couldn’t be more than twenty-four hours.

Matti glanced at the watch on her wrist, a birthday gift from Uncle Joe, and realized that sometime since she had left the market she had smashed it against something hard enough to shatter the crystal and dent the face.  Both hands were gone.  She didn’t remember hitting anything, but there was so much she didn’t remember, that she shied away from remembering. 

Wincing, she delved deeper.

She had been walking back home from the little corner grocery with a quart of buttermilk.  Her dad had talked her into making one of her buttermilk cakes for her birthday.  He — no!  As though she had touched her hand to a hot coal, she flinched away from fresh memories of Momma and Dad. 

... So, she had hitched a ride to the store with Uncle Adam.  It hurt to think of him, too, but she didn’t know if he was alive or dead, not like — No!  ... Uncle Adam had visited her family almost every day of his leave.  Today, when Uncle Adam started out the door, she recalled with a quivering lip, he called out, See you later, Champion. 

That had been his nickname for her since the first time her dad had brought him home for the holidays.  She was six at the time.  Sometimes it seemed like just yesterday, other times it was like forever ago.  The nickname referred, not to her various abilities, but to the spark plug that he claimed she reminded him of due to her boundless energy and fire.  After he had been at the house for a couple of hours that first day, he pulled a boxed spark plug out of his pocket and showed it to her, pointing to the bold lettering on the side.  He helped her to read it, to pronounce it by sounding out the letters.  Then he said that was her.  She smiled at that treasured but distant, therefore mostly painless, memory.

With aching heart, she recalled running after him today as he was leaving, catching him as he got into his car and asked if he would drop her at the store, and he said sure, hop in.  As always, she yakked the whole way about half a dozen different things.  He always teased her that she must have very good lungs to be able to talk continuously without ever taking a breath.  He said she was like a friend of his that played a trumpet in a symphony orchestra.  Adam described one piece he played, Flight of the Bumblebee, a long, rapid fire number where it you couldn’t tell when he took even a quick breath, some nearly impossible technique he called circular breathing that he couldn’t even describe.  He said she must have learned to talk with circular breathing.

She remembered their last words, her telling him about a character in her latest story and him offering to give her a ride back home, echoed in her mind like the closing of a distant door.  When she got out at the store — she could still feel his kiss on her cheek — just before he drove away, he told her that he did like her, the character in Matti’s story.  He said he thought she sounded great, sort of reminded him of someone he knew.  Of course, he meant Matti.  And then he drove away towards downtown where he probably —  

No!  Don’t go there, yet! her mind screamed.  Old memories — just stick to old memories.

She had grown up listening to her mom and dad telling stories about Adam.  He and her dad were Navy SEALs together, and then her dad had taken a medical retirement after losing half of his left leg on a mission.  Matti was eleven at the time, and she well remembered those terrible days after he came home, of tiptoeing and whispering.  They seemed to go on forever, and the nights were filled with nightmares. 

Adam and her dad had joined the navy some years apart, her dad being older by a decade.  But when they met in the SEALs and discovered they were from the same, small hometown in the coastal hills just an hour’s drive north of San Francisco, they became good friends.  They often took leaves at the same time and got to know each other’s families.  Adam’s dad lived on a ranchette just north of town, but his mother had been gone for years.  After Matti’s dad had brought Adam home that first time, he and her family melded so well and so comfortably, she couldn't remember what it was like without him. 

Matti flinched at the sound of a loud explosion not far from the mouth of the tunnel, probably another propane tank on someone’s barbecue.  The black Lab tensed but didn’t rise.  After a few moments of her continued stroking and mumbling soothing sounds, as much to herself as to the dog, the quivering again diminished.

Matti let her memories drift back, once more, to the time just before her mind threatened to shatter. 

After Adam had driven off and she started back home with her quart of buttermilk, the first flying saucer that looked more like a rebounding billiard ball came sweeping over the oak-forested hills south of town, from the direction of San Francisco.  Three or four more followed, and as each one swept over the town, it began to shoot out lines of violet light.

Her first impression of the flying saucers had been how hokey they were, shooting ray-guns, flickering beams of light like a laser show.  It was so old-fashioned, like the death-rays in those old movies from the sixties and seventies, or even before.  It had taken several seconds to sink in that it wasn’t a movie.  It was real.  They really were shooting up her town, her neighborhood — her house! 

Momma!  Dad!

Gritting her teeth, now, to the pain throbbing in her heart, and fighting to contain her breaths, to slow the deep intakes through her nose followed by slowly exhaling through her mouth, she recalled that once she started running for home, the fear swelled within her that she might be too late to help Momma or Dad or Jamal — no, her brother wasn’t there.  He had left the house a couple of hours earlier. 

The few blocks to her house seemed to take forever.  Like in a sleeping nightmare when her legs wouldn’t move as fast as they should, and her strides weren’t as long as they should be, she seemed to never get any closer. 

When she finally did arrive at the house, it and the houses on either side were spouting flames from every window, blazing like beach bonfires piled too high with driftwood.  Other houses in the area were burning, but few were as fully engulfed as hers.  It must have been one of the first to be hit.  She screamed for it to stop, but it wouldn’t.  She screamed, pleading for her other world to come back, a world in which she had known the security of love and laughter, but it whisked ever away from her like the swirls of smoke that choked her, and a conviction as demanding of heed as a falling mountain thundered that she would never know it again.

She remembered spinning around and back and forth until she saw one of the horrid things in the sky.  It was coming back across the neighborhood and shooting as it darted about and then took off back to the north and west toward downtown.  She could still visualize how each time that beam flickered down, another house burst into flame, or a car would erupt in a fireball, or trees would suddenly become giant torches. 

Tears streamed down both cheeks as she recalled spinning back toward her house and shouting and crying.  She screamed names, and pleas, and demands, and finally, as she sank to her knees with her face buried in her hands, just gibberish because of a creeping numbness that robbed her of her tongue and lips.  Momma and Dad and Barnaby were in there, and the heat was so intense she could get no closer than the sidewalk.  She remembered, now, how the weight of the scene inside the house that her mind conjured up, of voracious flames feasting on everything dear to her, was so terrible it seemed to crush the breath from her body. 

The dog suddenly yelped and tensed its legs beneath it, but it didn’t launch to its feet.  Instead, it swung its head about to peer straight into her face, locking eyes with her as though seeking assurances that she could still be trusted.  Guilt tweaked at her heart when she realized the relived nightmare had stoked her strokes over its back with too much energy.  She resumed gently kneading the back of its neck and muttering soft words.  After a bit, it began to relax again.

Easing herself back into the nightmare, she recalled how she couldn’t catch her breath, no matter how hard she sucked in air.  All she could do was scramble to her feet and run, running to find someplace she could breathe.  The running must have done it because she hadn’t passed out, but she couldn’t stop running, either. 

No matter where she ran, houses were burning, and those that burned started others burning, and trees, and cars, and it seemed her whole town was on fire.  She thought she could recall falling to the ground several times when she tripped or ricocheted off something; that could account for the broken watch.  She thought she remembered encountering other persons, but her recollections were so jumbled and confused she couldn’t be sure. 

Matti lay beside the dog with her arms hugging it as she sobbed, burying her face in the black, sooty fur.  It raised its head briefly and delivered a couple of tongue swipes in answer but remained where it was.

Curling into a fetal position while clutching the dog like a security blanket, she slid, again, into dreamless sleep.

She had no way of knowing how many hours later she awoke, although it was dark outside.  She sat up and looked around when she realized that the dog was gone.  It wasn’t just relocated to a less crowded space in the tunnel; it was gone, somehow having eased out of her sleeping grasp without waking her.  Either it had taken great care to not waken her, or she was nearly comatose ... or perhaps it was simply used to being around sleeping children.  Was that where the dog had gone, back to where the children, perhaps, still slept, or, more likely where they ...  She had to make a deliberate detour away from pondering the fate of those children.

Back into her fetal position on the cool, concrete floor and facing away from the terrible world outside, she gazed into the blackness of the tunnel and looked back, once more, at the recent past.

Her brother, Jamal, was not at home.  At fourteen, he and some friends had gone out earlier, maybe to a favorite neighborhood park to hang out and scheme how best to impress the giggling girls that always seemed to show up.  He and Rafael, his best friend, tended to — his best friend — best friend — suddenly, an image exploded into her mind, a memory of a face, another best friend, and she couldn’t stop the playback.

Matti and Marisa had been like sisters since the third grade.  Friendly competition between them gave more impetus than the entire remainder of the student body for each one to push to greater academic and athletic achievements.  Marisa pounding at her heels drove Matti to set new Petaluma High records for both the four-forty hurdles and the one-kilometer run.  The threat of Matti taking the win in a hundred yard sprint and floor gymnastics provided the incentive for Marisa to do it.  While helping Marisa prepare for a regional association’s fencing competitions with challenging practice sessions, Matti’s own skill became almost as great.  It was Marisa’s face that she now tried to force from her mind’s eye.  But she was compelled to look, again and again, into her best friend’s eyes.

Over and over, the scenes of memory cascaded forth: 

Running from her burning home, Matti is desperate to get to Marisa.  Marisa lives only a couple of blocks away, but maybe the fires aren’t there.  Maybe Marisa can tell her what to do to help Momma and Dad.  Maybe Marisa can protect her.  She frantically runs to Marisa’s house, but the fires are there, too. 

Marisa’s house is burning, flames shooting from every window.  But Marisa is outside, lying on the front lawn, and her hand is reaching out for Matti, clenching, grasping.  Matti cries out with relief when she sees her more-than-sister and runs to her. 

When she draws closer, though, she sees that Marisa is hurt, bleeding where a large piece of twisted metal protrudes from her chest, possibly a piece of an exploding car or propane tank.  It’s been driven into Marisa’s chest like some misshapen, grotesque dagger, and it’s killing her.  Matti kneels beside her and cries her name, and Marisa looks up at her.  Blood foams from her mouth as she says something, but her words are lost in all the noise around them.  Matti cries over and over for her to say it again, or to say something else because if she is still talking, she is still alive.  But, even as she pleads, she watches Marisa’s eyes go slack.  They don’t close.  They just become soulless, doll’s eyes, and Matti knows her forever best friend is gone, never again to share a secret laugh or to strive with her for excellence.

The hard, concrete floor of the tunnel numbed her side, and the darkness of the void before her offered scant comfort.  No matter how hard Matti’s hands pressed her temples, that horrible, final scene played over and over.  And it always ended the same with Matti screaming into the smoke-churned sky. 

Matti couldn’t remember leaving Marisa’s side.  The next thing she could remember were impressions of cool, soothing darkness invading her thoughts as she ran amid the flames.

The memory of Marisa’s dying roiled with her last images of Momma and Dad and Jamal and Uncle Adam,